Karl Rove has been working overtime trying to reassure the conservative wing of the GOP that some of his best friends are tea partyers. On Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News show last week, Rove played up his credentials with the right by asserting that he headed Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign in Texas. As it turns out, not so much. In fact, as we reported in some detail in the book Bush’s Brain, Rove worked for George H.W. Bush against Reagan in the state’s 1980 primary. And others directly involved in the Reagan effort in the Lone Star State say Rove...

February 8, 2013 Nuclear war over Rove's claims to work for Reagan; Gipper biographer says no Paul Bedard The war of words between conservatives and former Bush advisor Karl Rove has gone nuclear, this time over Rove's claim that he worked for Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign and on a Reagan advisory board. The bottom line: While Rove told The O'Reilly Factor Thursday that he worked for the Gipper, Reagan's acclaimed biographer Craig Shirley says there's no evidence to back Rove up. Worse: In an email Shirley is sending to conservative leaders, he reveals that Rove backed former President Ford in...